East Timor's Wounds

Andrew Giarelli, World Press Review assistant editor

New revelations about the Indonesian army's role in the 1975 murders of five Australian journalists during its invasion of East Timor are now unfolding. Melbourne's centrist Age has produced a fourth witness to the crime, "which has scarred Australia-Indonesia relations for more than two decades," writes Jill Jolliffe.

The former Timorese militia commander, who assisted Indonesian troops against independence guerrillas, is the first to directly link current Information Minister Lieutenant General Yunus Yosfiah to the killings, which occurred as his troops seized the town of Balibo. Yunus, "now one of the most influential members of the [President B. J.] Habibie government," acknowledged earlier this year that he had led the raid. Yunus, however, scoffs at allegations that he was personally involved in the killings, Lindsay Murdoch reports, also in The Age.